2023 ASHEVILLE FOOD FAN AWARDS AKA “THE STOOBIES!“ ALL WINNERS IN ALL CATEGORIES! Alrighty, Y’all! It’s time for me to name the winners in every category of the 11th Annual Food Fan Awards aka The Stoobies! When it comes to choosing winners, sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s a no-brainer, and on rare occasions I add a new category just to honor a particularly awesome food experience. Again, as always, please keep in mind that the winners below represent the best of what I personally ate all year long in 2022. Try as I might, I just can’t eat everything in WNC, so pleas ..read more

2022 ASHEVILLE FOOD FAN AWARDS AKA “THE STOOBIES!“ ALL WINNERS IN ALL CATEGORIES! Alrighty, Y’all! It’s time for me to name the winners in every category of the 2022 Food Fan Awards, the 10th Annual Stoobie Awards! When it comes to choosing winners, sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s a no-brainer, and on rare occasions I add a new category just to honor a particularly awesome food experience. Again, as always, please keep in mind that the winners below represent the best of what I personally ate all year long in 2022. Try as I might, I just can’t eat everything in WNC ..read more

I got into doing food tours for one reason: I needed a job! I had ditched my life-long career as an illustrator to write about food, but it turns out, the one job in the world that’s harder to make a living at than being an artist, is being a writer! Ooftah! Poor life choices. LOL So, I decided to go get a J.O.B., and since I had already taken food tours to write about them, I decided to go for it, and have been working for Asheville Food Tours ever since! Food Tours are super fun for both locals and visitors, and on my tours, I like to feed the fuck out of people! The photos below are all fro ..read more

PUNK ROCK HOT DOGS IS CANCELED. July 11, 2022 – Unfortunately Shay Brown and I have decided to cancel this event. Ticket sales have not been where we need them to be in order to pull it off, and with an event like this, we can’t wait any longer for ticket sales to bump. If you purchased a ticket, you will be refunded in full. We apologize for any inconvenience, and appreciate you for understanding. “Sad news, Y’all… I just got off the phone with Shay Brown Events and we have decided to cancel Punk Rock Hot Dogs 2022. This was not an easy decision, but unfortunately, ticket sales were just not ..read more

My Epic Delivery Journey is presented in reverse chronological order. Scroll down through the past… MANICOMIO VIA KICKBACKAVL Originally posted to Stu Helm: Food Fan Facebook page on  9/17/2021  My  Epic  Delivery  Journey  continues with what I call “Catered by Kickbackavl!” My mom wanted nothing in this world more than Manicomio pizza and entrees with family at my house on her birthday yesterday, so bah-dah-bing, bah-dah-boom, I ordered every dish on her list on line, it was delivered fresh, hot, and delicious, and was on the table ..read more

STU HELM: TRAVEL BLOGGER Originally posted to Stu Helm: Food Fan Facebook page on 7/20/2021 We ate at the famous Tracy’s King Crab Shack, in Juneau, Alaska. I forgot to take pics until we were almost done, but these little crab cakes were de-effing-lish, and the house made sauce was legit tasty. Recommend. We were lucky that our trip to Juneau coincided with the final weeks of their moratorium on cruise ships, so there were not the usual 15,000 to 20,000 tourists a day!!! No line at Tracy’s which would otherwise have been a mob scene. Asheville, if you think we have a massive tourism problem ..read more

I got into doing food tours for one reason: I needed a job! I had ditched my life-long career as an illustrator to write about food, but it turns out, the one job in the world that’s harder to make a living at than being an artist, is being a writer! Ooftah! Poor life choices. LOL So, I decided to go get a J.O.B., and since I had already taken food tours to write about them, I decided to go for it, and have been working for Asheville Food Tours ever since! Food Tours are super fun for both locals and visitors, and on my tours, I like to feed the fuck out of people! The photos below are all fro ..read more

STU HELM, TRAVEL BLOGGER: FOOD PODS Originally posted to Stu Helm: Food Fan Facebook page on 7/18/2021 One of my goals on our recent trip to Portland, Oregon was to check out some of their many “food pods,” which is what they call a food truck court. We went to one called Cartopia: Portland’s Food Cart Revolution,which was one of the cutest of them all. I got an excellent smash burger from a big truck that seemed to be the “anchor” of the food pod called Bottle Rocket PDX. These Portland food pods are bomb AF, and I’ll be posting more pics from them, so stay tuned! Plus one in Alaska that was ..read more

STU HELM, TRAVEL BLOGGER: PORTLAND, OR Originally posted to Stu Helm: Food Fan Facebook page on 7/15/2021 So… Dawn and I just got back from a two-week trip to the Pacific Northwest and I’m about to post a fucking flood of food pictures from Portland, Oregon and Juneau, Anchorage, Gerdwood, and Wittier, Alaska. Stay tuned. We went on an epic adventure. I have tales to tell. Originally posted to Stu Helm: Food Fan Facebook page on 7/17/2021 So, like I said Dawn and I took a trip to Portland Oregon, and of course I drank a lot of coffee! Stumptown Coffee Roasters coffee is probably the most well ..read more

My Epic Delivery Journey is presented in reverse chronological order. Scroll down through the past… MANICOMIO VIA KICKBACKAVL Originally posted to Stu Helm: Food Fan Facebook page on  9/17/2021  My  Epic  Delivery  Journey  continues with what I call “Catered by Kickbackavl!” My mom wanted nothing in this world more than Manicomio pizza and entrees with family at my house on her birthday yesterday, so bah-dah-bing, bah-dah-boom, I ordered every dish on her list on line, it was delivered fresh, hot, and delicious, and was on the table ..read more